Ann Widdecombe

The former Tory Minister writes exclusively for the Daily Express

BBC row mustn’t stop praise where it is due

IF instead of being alive, angry and wealthy enough to sue, Lord McAlpine was dead, then he would now be firmly established in our minds as a paedophile and grieving relatives would have no recourse to justice.

Former BBC Director General George Entwistle with Chairman of the BBC Trust Lord Chris Patten []

It is time to drop the law which says you can libel the dead with impunity and introduce the kind of provisions that prevail in some other countries, whereby relatives can sue for distress caused.

Newsnight ignored the blooming obvious, which is that if an independent inquiry after extensive analysis had decided there was no evidence to connect Lord McAlpine with what went on then there might be grounds for caution.

To be fair that was exactly the same reasoning on which the Jimmy Savile programme was dropped: some of the women complained they had been to police but had received a letter saying the star was too old and frail to be prosecuted but nobody could produce the letter and when a version did come to light it was demonstrably a fake.

It is a very messy business but when I came out of a television studio and saw a posse of reporters waiting for BBC directors, like vultures circling the corpse, I smiled sadly at the reflection that this time the corpse was one of their own.

Newsnight ignored the blooming obvious, which is that if an independent inquiry after extensive analysis had decided there was no evidence to connect Lord McAlpine with what went on then there might be grounds for caution

The BBC adopted a holier than thou attitude towards the Catholic church during the abuse scandals and has now found itself tarred with the same allegations of cover-up.

It has persistently pilloried government ministers for not knowing what was happening in some corner of their departments and now its own DG has resigned for not knowing what was about to happen on a flagship programme.

I suppose I should be laughing at a welldeserved comeuppance but deep down I am saddened because in my mind was last weekend’s Festival Of Remembrance when Huw Edwards gave a faultless performance with all the dignity of the late Richard Dimbleby.

While on the subject of the weekend’s Remembrance services, don’t let’s sign off again till next year as we drop our drooping poppies in the bin and start thinking about Christmas.

I was sent a copy of that famous picture of poppies, painted by Monet, which serves as a constant reminder of what we owe to so many. Apparently it is on sale in support of the Royal British Legion and advertisements for it have appeared in this newspaper.

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